Job: Lead 2-D Animator
Salary Range: The minimum weekly wage set by the Animation Guild is $1,888.80, or roughly $98,000 per year. Supervisors command higher rates. Non-union jobs may offer lower salaries.
Worker: Yssa Badiola
Age: 25
Education: Bachelor of fine arts degree in animation
Company: Rooster Teeth
For many millennials, cartoons were a Saturday morning staple. For Yssa Badiola, they were also inspiration for a career. As a child growing up in New Jersey, she knew art school was in her future, but she didn’t realize until arriving at California College of Arts that animation was her vocation.
Badiola, now 25, works as a lead 2-D animator for Rooster Teeth, a media company in Austin, Texas, that produces shows such as “RWBY,” “Camp Camp” and “Red vs. Blue.” She manages a team that uses computer software to bring characters and stories to life.
Badiola took a break from working on a new show, ” Nomad of Nowhere,” to reflect on her career path and share the benefits and challenges of working in a creative field.
Tell me about 2-D animation and your role as a lead animator.
We’re working on a show called “Nomad of Nowhere,” which is a Western fantasy setting about this one character, Nomad, who is being hunted because he has magic in this world that is a desolate, desert place.
Our director is one of the series writers for the show; there are three of them. They write out the entire script. From there, we go into pre-production, where we do storyboarding and voice-overs as well. It goes into editing, where our editor will take the boards and the voices and time them out into what we call animatics, a video that has all the story beats.
That’s when we’ll take it into main production for animation. The method we use is called cutout or puppet animation. It works exactly like its namesake; instead of redrawing every frame, we take existing drawings and move them around on the computer, like a puppet with strings. I proof the work that’s done, pointing out any small details and continuity [errors] while also guiding and making sure everything is on track. I talk with my producer and director every day to get a big picture idea of the responsibilities and priorities of the day, and I help maintain our production library for additional things that animators may need. On top of that, I have my regular duties as an animator on the team. If there are certain sequences that are difficult, sometimes they’ll ask me to animate that particular part. It’s a lot of multitasking and managing.
It goes from that point to post-production, where there is minor lighting and color correction and sound design.
Our 2-D animated series are typically 10 to 15 episodes and run for about 10 to 12 minutes each, with some exceptions.
What steps did you take to get your job?
In high school, I kind of knew I was going to art school. I have an older brother and an older sister. My joke is, my older brother went into engineering, and my sister is going to be a doctor, so OK, I can do whatever I want, and I want to go to art school.
I didn’t know being an animator was actually a thing I could do until I moved to Oakland to go to California College of the Arts. Initially I was a graphic design major, and then I learned there was an animation degree. I immediately switched over. It was honestly the perfect fit.
I had a teacher who said something that resonated with me: There will always be a job for an animator in the U.S. because there are so many media companies looking for motion artists. I took that to heart. I knew being an animator would get my foot in the door.
That summer after I graduated, it was kind of serendipitous, I really got into watching Rooster Teeth content. It was the one thing after I graduated college that I was really looking forward to. You know, you have the post-grad-depression of, ‘I don’t have a job.’
I saw Rooster Teeth had positions open for a 2-D animator. With some convincing from my friend and my sister, I applied to it. It was smooth sailing; I moved out to Austin a month after that.
[See: The 25 Best Jobs of 2018.]
What are the perks of your job?
I love the nature of working in animation because it’s always a group effort, and I love that cheesy family stuff. It’s also great to see a finished product come out of a concentrated group effort that’s really born out of this passion and this drive to make something we always wanted to see when we were younger but we never got to.
What are the challenges?
Burnout is very real, and sometimes overworking yourself is also very real, too.
You’re basically trying to juggle being at 100 percent for a 9-to-5 job and your “identity” as an artist wanting to do your own art after the day ends. The important thing to remember about studio animation is that it is a wholly collaborative process. You’re not just making art for yourself; you’re making it for your director, your studio, your audience, etc. Mentally, it can feel like running a marathon every single day, especially if you consider “art” to be a more inspirational, spur-of-the-moment feeling.
It’s a long journey of finding balance with your workplace, making sure you’re resting and taking care of your body while also still trying to meet the demands of production. It’s still a job even if it’s a job you like.
[See: 10 Jobs That Offer Millennials Good Work-Life Balance.]
What skills do you need?
The No. 1 thing that helps me the most is really good problem-solving skills. You’re given a task, and your boss is going to tell you, ‘OK, some of this works and some of it doesn’t, here’s how to fix it.’ The best way to go about it is to make sure you’re solving problems on a daily basis.
For example, this character looks washed out when we put a background behind it, how do we solve this problem? It is that habit of making sure you are solving these little mini problems that come along the way.
For people skills, the biggest thing about the animation industry in general is you always should be nice. With the advent of the internet and Twitter and how people in the industry are connecting through social media, it really pays off if you’re nice no matter what.
What’s a cool experience associated with your career?
I think one of the biggest payoffs for a job like ours is going to conventions. We have our annual Rooster Teeth expo in Austin. That’s the place where we see our hard work pay off. Mobs of fans come together. It’s Rooster Teeth-branded, so it’s specifically for us. The whole weekend I’m running on the adrenaline of love and affection from everyone.
[See: 25 Best Jobs That Pay $100K.]
What piece of advice do you have for someone who wants to pursue animation?
My favorite one to give is, “Do it.”
It’s such a blunt piece of advice for something that could have layers of issues. You can’t just do something, but at the same time, through my experience, as well as seeing other people go through their paths in life, the biggest, easiest way you could learn from something is to honestly just do it. If you have an idea, then go for it. Otherwise you’re going to sit and think about it, and you’re not going to know whether you’re actually learning.
For example, I didn’t know I was capable of finishing an actual comic until I did it. Actually holding the finished product in my hands, and being able to go through it, and seeing what I could have done better at the end, I learned so much faster doing that than just thinking about it.
The easiest way to know if you’re good at animation is to just take an animation 101 class. You can also check out some great animation tutorials on YouTube, since there’s a generous community of artists who are willing to teach what they know to people who want to know. To get some basic animating experience, maybe try creating a flip book.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
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Storyboarding Your Career: How to Get a Job in Animation originally appeared on usnews.com
